Larry Magid–made arrangements for People’s Peace Treaty: 1970

The photographer is unknown. The image is courtesy of Craig Simpson.

The National Student Association’s (NSA) Center for Educational Reform director Larry Magid is shown in a photograph circa 1971.

Magid flew to Paris in the fall of 1970 to make arrangements for a ten member student delegation to meet with North and South Vietnamese student leaders in order to negotiate a “People’s Peace Treaty” in an attempt to drive the stalled peace process forward.

The delegation, led by NSA president David Ifshin, met with Vietnamese student leaders in Paris and in Hanoi in December 1970. They returned with a treaty that was backed by 300 university student body presidents and college editors and introduced into Congress.

The treaty sparked the Central Intelligence Agency to investigate the NSA, the FBI investigated Ifshin and at least one other student leader and the State Department condemned the treaty.

If was an astonishing turn of events as only four years earlier, the CIA had funded the student organization.